Quick Tips

Description

This screen shows the content maps currently in the Smart Search index. Content maps allow you to cross-reference your indexed content (articles, etc) to related meta information such as the category in which it resides. Each content item that is indexed by Smart Search is added to one or more content maps that can be used as filters when searching the index.

Content maps are split into two parts:

Branches: These are super-containers for a particular type of information. For example, a branch could be "Section", "Category", "Event" or "Author".

Nodes: Nodes are the actual values for the meta information in a particular branch. The nodes are, for example, the names of the categories or authors.

These branches and nodes are what make up the advanced search panel available on the front-end. For each branch there can be a drop-down select list and the nodes are added as values to the respective list. More advanced site builders can override the default layouts and use multi-select lists or checkboxes instead.

It's important to note that branches and nodes from different content types are merged into the one list. A Joomla article in a category called "News" and a news feed or contact in a category named the same are mapped to the same node in the same branch. This is a little like tagging different types of content with the same label. The effect is that your site visitor does not have to know how your content is classified in order to set the correct filters to find it.

The content maps screen shows all the branches within the Smart Search index together with a number indicating the number of nodes within that branch. Clicking on a branch title allows you to see the nodes within that branch together with the number of content items that belong to that node. A content item can belong to multiple nodes within a branch as well as to multiple branches.

Screenshot

Toolbar

Publish. Makes the selected branches or nodes available to visitors to your website.

Unpublish. Makes the selected branches or nodes unavailable to visitors to your website. An unpublished branch will not be displayed as a select list in the front-end. An unpublished node will not appear in the select list for the branch in which it occurs. Re-indexing does not change the published state of branches or nodes.

Delete. Deletes the selected branches or nodes. Works with one or multiple branches or nodes selected. You can recover deleted branches or nodes by running the Smart Search indexer again.

List Filters

Enter part of the title of a branch or node and press the Search button to find matching branch or node. Press Reset to clear the search field and restore the list of content branches or nodes.

Filter by branch. Select the content map branch from the drop-down list.

Filter by published state. Choose whether to show only published or unpublished branches or nodes by selecting the appropriate item from the drop-down list.

Column Headers

In the table containing the indexed content for your Joomla! site you will see different columns. Here you can read what they mean and what is displayed in each column.

Title. The title of the branch or node.

Status. The status of the branch or node within Smart Search. Published items are shown with a green tick; unpublished items by a red circle. You can change the status of an item by clicking on the icon.